Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Dream of success

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001 | 8:58 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

THE LAS VEGAS beat goes on.

Most of the people who now call Las Vegas home were not here when Steve Wynn conceived the Mirage, less than 15 years ago. Not even one quarter of our nearly 1.5 million residents lived here when Kirk Kerkorian built the MGM Grand -- the first one, on the corner of Flamingo and the Strip. That was just 30 years ago. And only a handful of people can recall when the Desert Inn, Tropicana, Riviera and Sahara hotel-casinos sprang to life during the "heyday" of Las Vegas in the 1950s.

Except for the Flamingo -- the place that Bugsy built -- I remember them all. And what each and every one of them brought to Las Vegas with their grand openings was a bet on the future of this small but very promising town, a future that a small but growing number of people saw as clear as the starry nights for which Las Vegas and the entire Southwest had become famous.

But for every dreamer and builder who dared the odds and plunked down the money to share those dreams of grandeur, there were hundreds more who sat on the sidelines, wringing their hands and worrying beyond reason about what the future might bring. If there has been one constant in the Las Vegas experience it has been those who say that we have finally and forever overbuilt this place beyond any economic, political or social force's ability to recover. And each and every time, they have been wrong.

When Kirk opened the 2,000-room MGM Grand there was no shortage of experts who said not only that a hotel with that many rooms could not possibly succeed but also that Las Vegas could not attain the tourist growth needed to sustain what could have been the largest hotel in the world. A few years before, some wild-eyed dreamers brought the Roman Empire to the far end of the Strip and declared that Caesar commanded a successful journey. Few people listened and even fewer believed. Decades later, when Steve turned a desert Mirage into the beginning of a growth spurt of ideas run wild, there were plenty of people around who said, "now we've really gone too far." Only to be proved wrong again when Bellagio opened and we learned we had not yet gone far enough.

Tonight another young dreamer puts his money, his mouth and his significant talent into the opening of the next Las Vegas attraction. When George Maloof invites the public into the Palms hotel-casino this evening, he will be doing so at a time and in a place that will give the naysayers a field day. It wasn't that long ago that the Rio announced plans to build a Strip hotel blocks away from the famous Las Vegas Strip. It was a brilliant idea that had to prove itself, but that it did. It didn't take that long for the locals' casino experts like Michael Gaughan to step up and into the breech and create another success across the street. Couple those off-Strip successes with the hugely popular Sam's Town, Boulder Stations and other Boulder Highway joints and it was no longer a gamble to build away from the action.

But we all know that even in the good times bad things can happen. Strip hotels can fail, local casinos can miss markets and dreamers can build too far ahead of their time. There are no sure things in a world of gamblers. And that's the environment that George Maloof and his family find themselves as they prepare to open the doors into the Las Vegas of the 21st century. It is, to say the least, a very different place.

Normally, I would write about a new hotel after it has opened its doors. But since my family has a small and very passive investment in George's dreams, I think I should leave the critical assessments to others. As a matter of full disclosure, though, my family has been betting on Las Vegas for over 50 years. There are very few hotel companies in which we don't own a small, passive but very raucous rooting interest in their success. That's because the better the hotels do, the better everyone else in town seems to do. Their success is ours, all of us.

When the Maloofs conceived of the Palms, the economy was rolling along at a steady clip. The continued, country-leading growth of Las Vegas was no longer a yearly surprise to the people who lived here, with the notable exception of all the planners who have consistently underestimated the need for wider streets, bigger sewer pipes and spacious parks for the past half century. When the plans were put to paper there was no reason to expect that life in the fast lane of the Entertainment Capital of the World would not do anything but accelerate.

That's the kind of environment, of course, when all bad things happen. And they did.

First, the economy started to slow. And then the financially, socially and morally devastating attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon happened. Next came the war on terrorism. And, then, the economy tanked. For how long we don't know. My guess is just until we realize that it takes a lot more than some terrorists to stop this great country and we learn, again, that FDR was right about fearing fear. But that could take a little while.

In the meantime, an incredible media blitz and marketing bonanza will reap publicity, the very good kind, upon this city and the Palms. Celebrities from the sports, film and political world will show up tonight to help make the Palms opening one for the books. And they will do it with the full knowledge that life in the United States has changed, and so far not all for the better.

But all that is temporary and we don't need to look far to understand why that is so. For if it is true what everyone else is saying -- that Las Vegas is the 21st century's all-American city, the place every other city would like to emulate -- then giving reality to the latest dream of success is the surest sign of better times to come.

The Palms is just the first of many new hotels and playgrounds to be built in Las Vegas. Station Casinos and some people very close to me are set to open a beauty in Green Valley next month; Steve Wynn has just finished his plans for Le Reve -- down to the light switches -- and is ready to go; the drawing boards around town are warming up and the ideas are flowing. The next wave of success is just around the corner.

It all sounds like hype, I know. But I have been listening to this stuff from which dreams are made for over 50 years in this town and I can't find a good reason not to believe. That's because once they build them, the people do come. Tonight they'll come to the Palms to see what George built. And tomorrow they'll come back because he built it for them.

And the Las Vegas beat keeps going on.

archive